“The term “catharsis” can be employed to indicate
the passage from the purely economic (or egoistic- passional) to the
ethico political moment, that is the superior elaboration of the structure
into superstructure in the minds of men. This also means the passage
from “objective to subjective” and from “necessity
to freedom”. Structure ceases to be an external force which crushes
man, assimilates him to itself and makes him passive; and is transformed
into a means of freedom, an instrument to create a new ethico-political
form and a source of new initiatives.
Antonio Gramsci (1891 – 1937) is considered to be one of the most
important Marxist thinkers of the twentieth century, in particular as
a key thinker in the development of Western Marxism.